And i still don't get why it was "spammy"... I didn't critique the existing moderators or try to start an argument. It was a honest suggestion, that my services were available, and Garretts reply in the original thread was informative enough.
As posted to you in a PM - sorry for the confusion but the nature and style of your thread, the way it was worded, everything about it just made it look like it was nothing more than a light-hearted/good natured "joke thread" - something that belongs in spam really than taking up a full suggestions forum thread. From the light-hearted comments like "*cue applause and jubilation*" to the actual suggestion wording itself "I bringeth the obvious solution to poor moderating here: Make Enrico a moderator!"... you can't honestly blame anyone for assuming your thread was just a light-spirited joke/bit of humour, and thus spammed it?
You hit the nail on the head regarding "rules" - they shouldn't be black and white, they should just be something that can be interpreted by humans, for humans. Hell, it's why despite having reams of laws in western society, we still have a process of courts and jury's - rather than just a "you did this sort of crime so you get this specific pre-set punishment"... it's a process that works for eal life, let alone a virtual forums!
As for having posts of yours moderated/deleted "just because the moderators didn't like what they contained" - I can't stress this enough... if you've actually had a post unfairly edited, please,
please PM me the details - as it stands I can't see anything from a scan of the logs where your posts have been deleted (though it's hard to search the logs for a specific
target of moderator actions... the mod logs are designed for me to quickly look up the actions of a specific mod, rather than the targets of any mod... so I could well have missed anything!). Seriously - if people don't report such things to me, then there's no way of me knowing it exists, and there's nothing I can do to the moderators to prevent it happening again. If you really genuinely have had something edited/deleted out that was not breaking any forum rules, and you know a mod just removed it to abuse their power/cos they disliked you - then PM me the details, you and I
cannot and
must not let moderators get away with things like that, if it's actually happening... but keeping it quiet and then making a general "oh yes the moderators do evil things and can't be trusted I've seen it happen with my own eyes" is just no good, we can't fix anything, we don't know who's doing it, and before you know it you've got a wild conspiracy where all the users think every single moderator is absolutely corrupt to the core because they saw some users posting things like "oh yes those evil mods delete my posts for no reason".
I agree it was overzealous... it was very Squiffy like and fair and rules-worthy... but over-zealous and un-necessary - agree with your opinion on that issue, and I dealt with the issue, spoke to the mod, and it shouldn'#t happen again (and if it does then we have an issue that needs dealing with in a stronger way!
). As for rules being followed at a whim... there's two invaluable tools available to players, when not abused;
* Report tool. If something hasn't been dealt with by a mdoerator, that should be dealt with, you can report it. This report goes to
all moderators including myself. Every moderator will sooner or later (usually sooner - when they next log on) look at this report, and if it's not already been dealt with, make a decision on it... and if it has already been dealt with, can give their opinion on the handling of the situation, if they disagree with the handling. This means that nothing can be ignored by choosy mods - everything ultimately can be seen by all mods. If something is reported and nothing is still done - you can assume all the mods decided that it was within forum rules/allowable. If you feel strongly enough on the issue, you can PM me the problem and let me know what rules it's breaking/why it needs dealing with, and I can step in as a moderator myself, if necessary - or at least let you know why it wasn't moderated (ie - if it was too light/too small/was within rules and ok).
* Complaining about a moderator. If something HAS been dealt with by a moderator, and you don't like the way it was dealt with (unfair, nazi like, a mod abusing their powers because of personal dislike of another user/to cover up what another user is trying to say), PM me, and preferably as quickly as possible, giving as much details on the issue as possible.
What more balance could you hope for that a set of "rules" for the moderators could bring, especially given that "rules" of even these very forums themselves for the users aren't necessary to be followed - because sometimes those rules are only necessary for really bad/extreme cases, not every single case (eg the colours thread), and when bad/extreme cases aren't handled properly, you've got the two options above as users of the forums yourselves, to help bring balance if the moderators don't manage to balance it.
I meant no backhand to you - I was genuinely being general and making a point that the current mods seem to be coping without any "Mod rules". By assuming otherwise, we would be saying that the current set of mods are falling apart and doing a hopeless job because they don't have rules - and I wanted to make the point for the opposite - they're coping just fine without rules, but not everyone copes fine, naturally - and rather than think we need rules for those that don't cope fine, we can instead assume those that don't cope fine simply aren't up to the task.
And Squiffy - while fair - is one hell of a nazi. It's only lucky it's not set up to it's full capabilities - I've had to request no amount of "tonings down" of it's rules because the original ruleset had it banning people regularly for long periods for minor things. It did it consistantly, it did it by following the rules, and it was one horrific nazi op. Most of it's power and things it "ops for" have been removed/stripped down heavily, so it's more bark than bite now, but still got quite a nazi streak to it's bark. Robotic following of rules is bad bad bad.
To sum up though - if you think the current set of mods are doing rather hopelessly/failing to moderate these forums, then why not come up with - or work with some other forum users who feel the same way so you all only have a little bit of work each - come up with a set of "Moderator rules" that you think would improve the quality of our moderators, help them in their job, and help keep these forums a better place. If these rules would alter what the current mods are doing, then we can see what people think about them... if we look at the rules and go "actually, if they followed these, they'd never be able to moderate anything/they'd be total nazis", we can assume them to be un-necessary... and if we see that the mods are actually already doing what these rules dictate anyway, then again we know they just weren't needed. And even with rules, if there really is a nazi mod - a set of written rules won't stop them being a nazi and strictly following the forum rules (eg: colour thread)... we still need a set of humans at the end of the day
